The obvious. For all Will Friend’s coyness, the offensive line came in pretty much how it had been reported to have taken shape over the last week or so of practices. Theus and Houston are the tackles and Kublanow mans the left guard position. Gurshall is back, baby. The base set defensive line hasn’t changed in months. We knew that Floyd and Jenkins would start. And Swann.

The you can’t say you weren’t warned. Ray Drew is second team. So is Ramik Wilson. Aaron Davis is indeed your starting free safety – and is backed up by another walk-on. Lorenzo Carter is backing up Leonard Floyd. And there still isn’t a clear-cut back up to Hutson Mason.

Fun with numbers. Greg Pyke has a listed weight that’s more than twice Reggie Davis’.

Resurrection. Devin Bowman may be the happiest person in Athens about the coordinator change. He’s now starting at cornerback.

The ghost of Logan Gray. Georgia will have a true freshman returning kickoffs. And it’s Reggie Davis and Isaiah McKenzie returning punts.

So much for power football. No fullback listed on the depth chart, and Quayvon Hicks is listed as co-starter with Jay Rome at tight end.

Class breakdown. The starting 22 is composed of two freshmen (one true; one redshirt), five sophomores, seven juniors and eight seniors. A fairly experienced bunch, in other words.

What’s the over/under on changes to the starting lineup as the season progresses (not counting those due to injuries)? The offense looks pretty set to me in that regard, but I bet Jeremy Pruitt mixes and matches for a while.

Unless you attend the practices and attend the coaches’ meetings he has every right to question a comment like you made. The defensive coaches have clearly said the ones who play will have earned their spot, not be grated a position. Looks like the Ramik and Drew placements back that up, so what is the basis of your personal attack on their character or Bowman’s achievement?
You may well be right that some positions will change in the first few games, maybe longer, but itseems like you cheap-shotted several folks with your comment.

I can’t believe that Houston will be the starting RT. Either he had one hell of an off season/spring/fall or Dantzler looks like a monkey humping a doorknob at RT. I’m officially terrified about the OL now.

Dantzler is not SEC material, never has been. Been saying that since his first week of Camp 5 years ago (and been catching flack for it every since).

Nothing personal, and it’s not just Dantzler, he’s a DGD. But there’s been a lot of OL we should never have signed. We’re getting better the last two years or so (I think), but still need to up the bar on our selectivity.

If Dantzler really does resemble a monkey humping a doorknob, then what does that say about Houston? I realize that he has been going through the motions the past 3 years, but he displayed zero talent last season. I am excited to see what Pyke is capable of. Thrilled for Kublanow. Ambivalent towards Andrews. And left scratching my head about LT and RT. I hope that I am wrong. Saturday can not get here fast enough! GATA!

Houston last year was coming into the job without being able to be in the weight room at all due to the more he worked out the longer it would take for his levels ok the drug to get low enough for the NCAA to let him play. He has had a full off season of being able to go full out. Does that mean he will make a great RT I have no idea but he should be the most improved lineman simply from a S&C standpoint.

That is the way I remember it as well. I don’t think this entire group is where we want to be in the future with our OL talent and depth but I don’t expect this year’s OL to be any worse than last year. What I hope they are is more consistent and have fewer penalties. If the younger lineman are doing as well as reported we may have something beginning to turn around but too early to tell yet. I really think we need to fish in different waters, our OL performance hasn’t been better than average in a decade.

I don’t expect this year’s OL to be any worse than last year. What I hope they are is more consistent and have fewer penalties.

Here, here. As you pass go, please collect $200. Though I’ve quietly been hoping for some good things from Houston, as others have also, our talent is what it is. We can’t do anything about that.

But what we can do, what we can control is that. It’s what I call being solid, being fundamentally sound. We’re going to get beat, especially the Tackles. But do that, and the damage will be kept to a minimum. Do that, and it can be the difference in a ballgame or two.

Personally, I’m in wait-and-see mode as it relates to Houston’s ability to get the job done at RT. He had a lot of rough moments last fall no doubt, but we fans tend to lose sight of the fact that he was a scout teamer for 3 seasons. It’s tough to develop when you’re readying your teammates for battle with the rest of the scout team and not seeing live, SEC-caliber action. I’m cautiously optimistic that an offseason with legit preparation knowing he’s not waiting on the NCAA will do a world of good for his mental and physical state of mind. He got thrown in the fire last year and wasn’t ready for it.

I’m more than slightly terrified about the safeties in this first game. Recall how the tackling looked against these same Tigers in the lid-lifter last year? Sweet Lord we must supplicate to the Kharmic Bitches, majic Hats or any other totem of Dawgdom in the hope that Floyd and Jenkins run riot on the OLine and that untested QB such that he can’t get stuff over the top of this mysterious secondary.

Still, I fancy the two-pronged attack from Gurshall busting the gut of the Clemmins D and, when they flow for that, receiving swing passes in the flats.

I’m more than slightly terrified about the safeties in this first game. Recall how the tackling looked …

Nobody can fault you for that, Stranger. At least anybody who’s watched our Safeties play the last 8 years.

I’m concerned, but strange as it seems, not as concerned as I usually am. And for some reason (don’t ask me why), I’m less concerned about Aaron Davis, who’s never played a snap of college ball, than I am Corey Moore, who’s in his 5th year at Georgia.

There’s a lot to playing Safety, and tackling by the entire secondary is critical. We’ve heard little about it, but I have to believe our tackling is much improved, not just from a year ago, but over anything we’ve seen since VanGorder was here.
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I’ll be deferring to your vision in the face of what appear glaring concerns then, I.L. If we can all relate to the hype-machine of the glossy preseason pigskin annuals, then mayhaps the LBers will be cleaning up more of the mess before the trouble gets too deep into the defensive backfield.

Ivey, I don’t understand how you can have so much contempt for our secondary in the 2010 – 2012 -ish years. Williams, Commings, Boykin, Smith et al did very well for us. I know you can’t stand Rambo for making the occasional dumb play back there but he had some big plays, too, iirc.

Appreciate that, Cosmic. I really do. I went into this in some detail sometime in the last 2 weeks or so. I’ll see if I can dig it up for you, though you may well still disagree.

But basically, it wasn’t all bad, just inconsistent and sloppy back there. They made some plays, all of them. Boykin was actually consistent and reliable most of his time here. The others got better, all of them, by the time they were seniors, to the point where they were mostly reliable.

The worst of the bunch was Rambo, who was still making some freshman mistakes his senior year, even though he made fewer mistakes every year he played. To put that in perspective, I’d hazard a guess we’ll have fewer freshman mistakes this year from our Safeties as a group, than we did from Rambo alone his senior year. And he missed 4 games.

Williams and Commings actually played at a pretty high level their senior year, and were rewarded for it in the draft. They probably had no chance of getting drafted without that senior year.
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I gotta say I was totally surprised when I saw Bowman at the starting FC. Totally. And that isn’t an easy thing to do. I still don’t believe it. I guess we’ll see.

IDK. It could be, at the end of the day, the coaches, or maybe just Richt himself, couldn’t swallow starting two or three TF on defense. After last year’s debacle, that’s understandable. And coaches are like that anyway.

So whether the older guys start, and then Pruitt rolls the young Pups in once the ice is broken, we’ll have to see. I just have a hard time believing Bowman has come that far. But if he has, hey, that’s a very good thing for us.

I don’t believe all of the chart is accurate. Some things probably are – like A.Davis, Kimbrough, Sanders. But even if this depth chart is real, it still may not make all the way ’til kickoff. Particularly the defensive side.

When we’re gonna know where things really stand on defense, is after the game Saturday.
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I think yall are a little too harsh on Bowman for his few bad plays. I remember some good plays, some I admired before the identity of Bowman making the play. If Pruitt is looking with an objective eye, as stated, he thinks Bowman is the best for that position. Let’s give him a fair chance and trust in Pruitt’s judgement until proven different. Let’s don’t hang the poor guy out to dry without looking at his preparation and performance. I remember the same shots taken at Wilson and Herrera simply because they were first playing behind great players. See how that turned out?

I think y’all are a little too harsh on Bowman for his few bad plays. I remember some good plays, some I admired before the identity of Bowman making the play.

I wasn’t thinking of those, rather my overall impression of him on film, both in games and in drills, etc.. What was harsh?

If Pruitt is looking with an objective eye, as stated, he thinks Bowman is the best for that position. Let’s give him a fair chance and trust in Pruitt’s judgement until proven different.

That’s partially the point, whether or not the depth chart is real, whether it’s a snapshot of that particular day, or whether the decision’s been made to start Bowman, and if it’s because of age & experience, or because he’s the best player. And so on.

IDK, and won’t until we see who lines up and plays most of the game. Maybe you do. But right now I’m not buying it. Depth charts & Pruitt is something I’ve yet to figure out. But I love his attitude about them.

Let’s don’t hang the poor guy out to dry without looking at his preparation and performance.

I didn’t do that. I’ll say it again, if Bowman is the starter it means he’s come a long way since I last saw him. He even looked behind the others in video clips of drills earlier in Camp. But it’s perfectly understandable if he has. Great coaching can make all the difference, and it can turn a player around.

Same is true with Corey Moore. If he’s really changed from the player he was then he deserves a lot of credit. Because there were many bad habits to break, and most of the time it’s easier for new guys who haven’t ingrained those bad habits. If Moore is fundamentally sound now, he had to break a lot of bad habits to get there.

But if Moore and Bowman start and end up playing the most snaps, we’ll know for sure they are our currently our best options, as we have no reason to distrust Pruitt. But we won’t know that until the Clemson game is over. And even then, it’ll likely be a dynamic depth chart, as the Senator has pointed out.

I remember the same shots taken at Wilson and Herrera simply because they were first playing behind great players. See how that turned out?

JSW will only be suspended if he cleared medically/able to play. If he is not healthy, then he will be suspended for host first game back. As of today, I am not sure where he stands as far as his health is concerned.

That seems a little unbalanced. When you are suspended, whatever game is next after it occurs is it, doesn’t matter if it is the SECCG or a Charleston Southern, why would it not be the same when it works in our favor as a team? No one knew what his health status would be when he was suspended, or if he would have even make the top of the depth charts. Seems we spin the wheel and whatever happens in the next game, or two , or six, is just luck of the draw. Seems like letting the medical staff have a say is manipulating the system, one game is one game….the next one. Some one game suspensions hurt more than others, but that isn’t up for finagling with the timing.

By that logic, he would have been suspended for the Florida game last year. The point to the suspension is to serve as chastenment for the player. You have to be healthy and game ready before you serve your suspension.

Not aware of the timing, I thought this was after FU. I still think it should be the most immediate game/games. I understand the intent but allowing trainers to make that determination allows for the manipulation we saw from Spurrier and Urbie about them deciding the game they would sit out. Take it as it falls, an actual injury would rarely save someone.

I would ordinarily agree with this, but wasn’t he suspended for the first game of the season before he got injured? I don’t know how the suspension rules work, but it seems like piling on to the guy if you make him sit out an extra game just because NOW he’s not healthy for the original suspension.

Reading through “The Richt Era” stats, on the third page of the press release, a number that jumped out to me was the win/loss record when UGA scores first vs when the opposing team scores first. The records are 95-18 vs 30-28 respectively. That’s equates to a 0.517 win percentage. I didn’t realize we have had such a hard time winning when the other team scores first. But, if we score first we have an 0.841 chance of winning based on Richt’s history. I wish the former was higher but I’ll take the latter all day.

Quote Of The Day

“He had some good pointers,” Smart said about Saban’s advice on dealing with the quarterback battle. “But I’ll keep that between he and I. I’m always looking for good advice especially dealing with the quarterback situation.” — Dawgs247, 5/16/18